Excerpt page 2: Self-identifying, though, is just one piece of a very convoluted puzzle. In the United States, there are myriad ways a Native person may be required to demonstrate their identity. That list includes Tribal enrollment. Yet, at the same time that the number of people self-identifying as Native in this country has increased to over 9.7 million, the number of people enrolled in Tribes is much, much lower.
This nuance is particularly pronounced among people who identify as Cherokee. As of 2023, just over 450,000 people were formally enrolled members (called citizens) of the Cherokee Nation. That is, 450.000 people have some sort of card, which they applied for and received through the process the Cherokee nation determined. Another (approximately 14,000 people are enrolled in the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma. Together, about 480,000 people in this country are enrolled in one of three federally recognized Cherokee Tribes.
Excerpt pages 2-3 : Scholars have written a lot about this phenomenon - that because of complex issues that includes patterns of disconnection, relocation, and misrepresentation in family lore, the number of people claiming Cherokee heritage is very high. But we see this not just with Cherokee. This same gap, between claiming Native identity and being formally verified as having it, exists for many other Tribes in the United States.
Over the last 250 years, the U.S. government has ping-ponged between full-scale "termination" of Native peoples to (alleged) protectionism of them to everything in between. And often what has been at stake - besides the obvious human lives and land rights - is sovereignty. That is, in losing their land and, often, their lives, Tribes have clung to their rights of self-determination for continued survival.
